Great Pyramid of Giza (Pyramid of Khufu) — the oldest and largest of the three pyramids on the Giza plateau. Built c. 2560 BCE, it stood 146.6 m tall for over 3,800 years as the tallest structure on Earth. Toggle to interior mode to explore the passage system, chambers, and the mysterious Big Void discovered in 2017.
RMS Titanic wreck site — North Atlantic abyssal plain, 3,784 metres below the surface. The bow and stern sections lie approximately 600 metres apart, with a vast debris field between them. Discovered on September 1, 1985 by Robert Ballard using the Argo deep-tow camera system.
Human eukaryotic cell — the fundamental unit of life. Contains membrane-bound organelles including the nucleus (DNA storage), mitochondria (energy production), endoplasmic reticulum (protein synthesis), and Golgi apparatus (protein packaging). Approximately 37.2 trillion cells comprise the human body.
Pompeii — Roman city buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 24, 79 AD. This insula (city block) contains a typical domus with atrium, impluvium, and peristyle garden, along with street-facing tabernae (shops). Toggle between the living city and the excavated ruins preserved under 5.6 metres of volcanic ash.
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Unit 4 — RBMK-1000 graphite-moderated reactor. On April 26, 1986 at 01:23:45, a catastrophic steam explosion during a safety test destroyed the reactor core, ejecting the 2,000-ton biological shield and releasing 400 times more radiation than Hiroshima. Toggle between the intact reactor and the destroyed state.
Deoxyribonucleic acid — the molecule that encodes the genetic instructions for all known living organisms. The double helix structure, discovered by Watson and Crick in 1953, consists of two sugar-phosphate backbones connected by complementary base pairs: adenine–thymine (2 hydrogen bonds) and guanine–cytosine (3 hydrogen bonds). Toggle to see how DNA coils into chromosomes.
Saturn V — the most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status. Designed by Wernher von Braun's team at NASA Marshall, it stood 111 meters tall and generated 34,020 kN of thrust at liftoff. All 13 flights were successful, carrying the Apollo astronauts to the Moon and launching the Skylab space station. Toggle to cutaway view to see the internal fuel tanks, engines, and spacecraft.
Pangaea ("all lands") — the supercontinent that existed from ~335 to ~175 million years ago. All major landmasses were joined in a single vast continent surrounded by the global ocean Panthalassa. It split into Laurasia (north) and Gondwana (south), which further fragmented into today's continents. Toggle between geological periods to watch 250 million years of continental drift.
Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) — one of two general-purpose detectors at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. Proton-proton collisions at √s = 13.6 TeV produce showers of particles whose trajectories curve in the 3.8T solenoidal magnetic field. Charged particles spiral through silicon trackers, photons and electrons deposit energy in the electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL), hadrons penetrate the hadronic calorimeter (HCAL), and muons reach the outermost detection layers. Fire events to observe dijets, Z→μμ, H→γγ, and more.
Spacetime curvature — a binary star system orbiting their common barycenter. Both masses warp the fabric of spacetime, with the heavier star creating a deeper well while barely moving, and the lighter companion sweeping a wide arc. The grid deforms under the superposed gravitational fields of both objects in real time.
Alcubierre warp drive (1994) — a theoretical solution to Einstein's field equations that allows faster-than-light travel by warping spacetime itself. A "warp bubble" contracts space in front of the ship (orange) and expands it behind (blue). The ship inside the bubble sits in flat spacetime and experiences no acceleration. The metric requires exotic matter with negative energy density — a fundamental obstacle that remains unresolved. The grid shows the York expansion scalar: the rate at which spatial volume changes.